Mozilla has announced it's ceasing development on Thunderbird; one more version will be released, and it'll be security updates from then on. "Most Thunderbird users seem happy with the basic email feature set. In parallel, we have seen the rising popularity of Web-based forms of communications representing email alternatives to a desktop solution. Given this, focusing on stability for Thunderbird and driving innovation through other offerings seems a natural choice." Makes sense - I mean, there's only so much you can do with something that needs to send and receive mail, and I can't imagine Thunderbird having a lot of users. Strange, almost Microsoftian obtuse announcement, by the way.

The major issue here is that people want to access their mail anytime on any computer, and that`s where the client loses and webmail wins. Unless you carry your notebook wherever you go, what`s the point of an email client?

As said by many in this thread, you can very well have both worlds, access your emails from everywhere and, at same time, have copies of them on your notebook and/or desktop and/or server. That is what I like to do. If you use your emails professionally, BACKUPS are a MUST.

Also, there are very useful extensions for Thunderbird that are hard to be matched by other emails clients, even Outlook falls short behind on some use cases.

Sad day. Will keep using it. Hopefully the community will help maintain it.

The major issue here is that people want to access their mail anytime on any computer, and that`s where the client loses and webmail wins.

Have you ever tried to use a webmail interface on a mobile device? They're terrible. Slow, laggy, buggy and lacking in features. PGP? Fail. Push notifications? Forget it.

Unless you carry your notebook wherever you go, what`s the point of an email client?

I suppose you've never heard of IMAP, have you? That's how most reasonable people do it - server side mailbox, client-side app, IMAP+SMTP to tie it together. Simple, secure, universal and *I* get to decide what app to use to access my e-mail, not my e-mail service provider.